


The Moment He Lost Her

by honestgrins



Series: Round and Round [4]
Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M, klaroline infinity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-08
Updated: 2017-03-08
Packaged: 2018-09-30 22:15:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10173539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honestgrins/pseuds/honestgrins
Summary: Day 4 - During Canon: TVD 4x13 Klaus rarely regretted his impulsive nature. In a thousand years, there was no problem of his own making that could not be rendered moot with time or some other pressing situation. With Caroline, however, he was learning that even his millennium of experience had nothing on the pull of this one baby vampire.





	

The door slammed shut, the sound like a jolt to Klaus's system as he watched them through the window.

Tyler carefully placed Caroline in the passenger seat of his car. Her pained gasp at the rub of her seatbelt was all that kept Klaus from rolling his eyes; she was a vampire who hardly needed such a safety measure.

He would have muttered a mocking joke they could easily from outside, if only he could find it funny. Humor had left him entirely at the realization that Caroline was leaving without the cure to the poison in her veins - the poison he put there.

Rubbing a frustrated hand through his hair, Klaus wanted more than anything not to care. She was the one to provoke him, to allow her wounded puppy off his leash to pick a battle he couldn't win. As the Original Hybrid, it was only to be expected for Klaus to react badly to the challenge posed by mere high schoolers. They ought to have felt lucky that a nasty bit was all he gave.

But as he watched Tyler drive away, the pit of regret in his stomach began to fester.

Klaus Mikaelson didn't have the time or patience for regret. The bitter self-awareness wasn't something he enjoyed and actively ignored in favor of more fulfilling diversions. A thousand years of guilt and seeking absolution seemed like an utter waste of his attention when he could drown his sins in a gorge of blood.

The stray taste of the rusted stain on his lip, however, sobered him completely. He had bitten Caroline on impulse. Less than three seconds of pleasurable spite had obliterated the last vestiges of her goodwill, the conviction that no matter what he might do to destroy others, Klaus would never hurt her.

With the burning look of hatred in her eyes as she stared him down, Klaus was sure that conviction had been lost.

It was a familiar realization; Klaus usually revelled in it. Perhaps the last time he felt so conflicted was when Rebekah had woken after her long sleep. Centuries of watching him dagger their brothers, but she was only incensed when he dared to turn on her. A part of him wanted to throw the comparison in Caroline's face, if only to elicit that competitive gleam of anger her expression adopted at any sign of challenge.

Caroline wouldn't rise to the bait anymore, not after his rash decision to bite her and especially if she wasn't healed in time before-

"No!" he growled, overturning the chair he'd been gripping too tightly. He paced the room in his agitation. The smell of his brother's ashes still burned in his nose, and death permeated his every sense. At least he could blame the doppelganger and her idiot brother for killing Kol - plotting their slow deaths would easily help to pass the time until he could leave their wretched living room.

But the worsening wound on Caroline's neck was no one's fault but his own.

Klaus wasn't even sure if he would take it back if he could. A crisis of conscience wasn't something he often suffered, but he should have known that little Caroline Forbes could inspire one. He didn't want her to die; even less did he want to be the cause. Those desires might not overpower his pride, he realized in horror.

As angry as he was at their stupidity, of leaving behind the only cure that could save her, Klaus was almost grateful to have the choice taken from his hand. Out of character for him, maybe, but that's what Caroline did. He constantly found himself doing things he never would, because of her. Biting her might be his most authentic action since allowing her even the slightest influence.

She couldn't mean his ruin if she were dead.

Clenching his fists, Klaus tried to push away the images filling his mind of her graying body. Would she be hallucinating yet?

Would she be thinking of him?

He hated that he wondered. If he could just get out of the godforsaken Gilbert house, he wouldn't have to wonder at all. He might charter a jet, get the hell out of Mystic Falls altogether and leave the confusion of it behind him forever.

His quick trip to Italy wasn't enough - Klaus decided upon Rome for his first destination once he waited out the Bennett spell.

_"I'll take you, wherever you want. Rome, Paris. Tokyo?"_

The memory echoed in his brain, the blunt force of it making him wince in imagined pain. It had been a ridiculous ploy to impress her, just a trick to prove he would always be the alpha male to whom all eventually submit.

Caroline wanted none of it. There was the spark of curiosity in her eye, but still she scoffed in his face and threw his bracelet down at his feet. He had faced stronger women before; it was the strength coming from one so young, so powerfully aware of the danger he posed to her and her friends, that ended up impressing him.

And he destroyed the bedrock to that strength with little more than a gnashing of his teeth. The impact of it kept coming in waves, disturbing Klaus to his core. Half of him wanted to tear out of the house and force his blood down her throat, the other half wanted to watch with a sick glee as she choked on her last breaths.

Klaus slid to the floor as the image filled him, his fingers feeling sticky like her blood was seeping into his skin. Head pounding, he laid back until each muscle of his body could relax the tension that had built immensely.

A werewolf bite acted quickly, and Caroline would need the cure within hours. Tyler would bring her back, he knew without a doubt.

He could wait. As long as it took, he would wait.

Caroline Forbes wasn't dying because of him. Klaus feared he could never forgive himself for allowing it.

He feared it might happen anyway.

Staring at the ceiling, he blinked away tears he hadn't noticed pooling in his eyes. How ridiculous.

By the time headlights flashed across the ceiling, Caroline's hacking coughs clearly audible for him, Klaus actually managed a small smile.

She was going to live, and he wouldn't have to lose her entirely.


End file.
